Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Massachusets Supreme Court recognizes in intra law firm privilege

The Legal Profession blog is reporting (here) on an important new decision from Massachusets on whether confidential communications
between law firm attorneys and a law firm's in-house counsel concerning a
malpractice claim asserted by a current client of the firm are
protected from disclosure to the client by the attorney-client
privilege. The court concluded that they are, provided that (1) the law firm
has designated an attorney or attorneys within the firm to represent the
firm as in-house counsel, (2) the in-house counsel has not performed
any work on the client matter at issue or a substantially related
matter, (3) the time spent by the attorneys in these communications with
in-house counsel is not billed to a client, and (4) the communications
are made in confidence and kept confidential. The case is called RFF Family Partnership, LP v. Burns & Levinson LLP. The Legal Profession blog has more on the story and a link to the case here. The Legal Ethics Blog also has more here.